MIT invited to open house in sukkah

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The entire MIT community is invited to an open house in the MIT sukkah (the small wooden hut on Kresge Oval) today from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

Sponsored by MIT Hillel, the open house will have live klezmer music and refreshments to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which lasts for seven days each autumn.

Sukkot (the festival of booths or tabernacles) is celebrated as an agricultural holiday marking the harvest. It has roots in the Biblical book of Leviticus, which orders Jews to live in a hut for seven days as a reminder of their time wandering in the desert. Families often build their own sukkahs in which they eat and occasionally sleep.

MIT's sukkah was designed and constructed by students about 10 years ago to reflect the tradition of innovative design and architecture at the Institute. Students frequently eat their meals in the hut, and in fine weather they do their homework under the dried plants laid on the hut's roof.